


The Best Friendship Is a Good Defense

by writingfromdarkplaces



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7903684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roslin comes across something that leads to a confrontation between Lee and Adama about Carolanne's problems, and Karl steps in to be the friend he wasn't before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Friendship Is a Good Defense

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Everything I Needed to Know about Being Your Friend I Learned from Your Soulmate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7725976) by [writingfromdarkplaces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces). 



> After I did the original piece for this, I came up with the thought about this confrontation. I also had ideas of doing other points of view for the same tale (Lee's, Kara's) or expanding the section in their childhoods.
> 
> It took me a while to cycle back to this, since I got sidetracked along the way, but I still wanted to do it.

* * *

“President Roslin?”

Laura looked up from her files, frowning at her visitor. She hadn't expected to see anyone. She'd been focused on her work, needing to find a way to Earth. Now that they had left New Caprica behind, it was more important than ever.

“Yes. Can I help you with something?”

“You said you wanted every record we could find on Kobol, even the obscure ones,” the aide said, and Laura tried to remember his name, but she couldn't find it. Gods, she missed Billy. He would know. Things were not the same since he died, and she knew that would never change. “Here are some of the more obscure ones.”

Laura smiled, accepting the pile and sitting down with them. She flipped through the papers, shaking her head as she did. She should never have asked for obscure references. None of this was useful.

Except that. Now this photograph was interesting. She didn't think it would be at all helpful, not with the search for Earth, but she could still use it. It might be just the sort of thing they all needed.

* * *

“Major, I might just have a bone to pick with you.”

Lee looked up with a frown, and Karl almost laughed when he did. He knew he wasn't much of a friend for doing it, but he couldn't help it. The other man's reaction to the president's arrival was funny. Not that it should be if Karl took it to its natural extension. There were rumors about the Old Man and the president, and there were also people who considered her the “mom” of the fleet to the admiral's “dad.” Lee starting like that, looking mildly panicked, was not a good thing at all.

“Sir, I'm not sure what you mean,” Lee said, forcing a smile. “I know we never actually discussed whether or not you were reinstating the position of your military adviser—”

“We didn't? I simply assumed it was still you, Major Apollo,” she said with a smile. “No, no, my bit of contention comes from a remark I definitely remember you making. You said you didn't know anything about Kobol.”

“I don't.”

“I believe this would disagree with you,” Roslin said, holding out a paper to him. Lee took it. “Or perhaps you should refresh the major's memory, Captain Agathon. It appears you knew more than you let on about that planet as well.”

“I did?” Karl asked, moving over to see the paper. He'd almost forgotten they made the local paper for that. Then again, the whole thing had gotten a little overshadowed by what he'd learned about Carolanne Adama at the time. “Gods, that was a lifetime ago.”

“What was?” the admiral asked, moving away from Tigh and coming toward them. He took the picture from his son, frowning. “I don't remember this. I didn't even know you two knew each other before.”

Lee swallowed, schooling his features into a bland mask. “You didn't get a lot of leave when you were stationed there.”

“Your mother would send pictures. I must have missed this one.”

Karl shook his head. He didn't believe this. The admiral was still doing it. Still pretending his ex-wife was actually a good mother. Well, maybe she had been for Zak, but Karl wasn't so sure about that, either. Lee had been a buffer. He made his younger brother's life better. No one had done that for Lee. He'd taken his mother, full force.

“I'm not surprised she didn't send the picture, sir,” Karl said. “She must have thought that thing was in pieces.”

Adama frowned. “Excuse me?”

Lee shook his head. “Helo, don't do this. It's not—”

“Not what, Lee? You really going to stand there and pretend this is fine when it's not? Your mother threw that model off the table. She wrecked it. It was completely destroyed, and I still don't know how you rebuilt it in time for school the next morning. You couldn't have gotten any sleep.”

Lee stiffened, glaring at Karl in anger. “It was fine.”

“The frak it was. You missed school for two days afterward, too, and I don't buy for one frakking minute that you were sick. I never did.”

“What are you talking about, Captain?” Roslin asked, her question echoed in Adama's look.

“It's nothing,” Lee said. He gave his father a look. “Nothing you want to hear, at least.”

“He wasn't the one that asked,” Roslin said, but Adama shook his head, putting himself in between the two of them.

“If this is about your mother, I think enough has been said already.”

Lee snorted. “That is so typical of you. Laying down the law about what can and cannot be said. You really are completely unwilling to look past that damned bubble. It's not even me this time. I don't want to say a damned thing, but it doesn't matter, does it? You won't listen to anyone.”

“That's enough, Major. You're out of line,” Adama said, and Lee rolled his eyes as he walked away from them.

 _You frakking bastard,_ Karl thought, unable to believe what he'd just heard. The admiral had to know that he couldn't ignore this. He'd been the one to bring up Carolanne's behavior, not Lee, but he was still getting the flack for it.

“Major, you are still on duty—”

“I'm not doing this with you, Dad,” Lee called over his shoulder. “When you're done burying your head in the sand, I'll be back. Until then, I believe I have flight schedules to write.”

Adama glared at his son's back, and Karl shook his head. The president put a hand on his arm, and he looked at her with a frown.

“I think I'd like to know what just happened there, Captain.”

“I can explain,” Adama said. “The captain doesn't have to—”

“To pretend your ex-wife wasn't an abusive alcoholic bitch? Yeah, I won't. I don't know why the hell you would, but stop trying to make your son do it. He shouldn't have to. He did when he was a kid because it was the only way to survive, but the woman is dead, and he's not doing it anymore, okay? He doesn't have to. He's not going to destroy himself to keep up your delusions about your ex-wife.”

“Now you are the one that is out of line,” Adama said. “I won't have you—”

“She _hit_ him,” Karl said, refusing to back down. Maybe he shouldn't say anything in front of the president, but he didn't know that the admiral would have listened if she wasn't there. “She did it right in front of me. She broke the model of Kobol, and she hit him. Honestly, I thought she was going to kill him, and I was scared. But he told me to run, to get out of there, and I did. Gods help me, I did. When he didn't show up at school, I really did believe the worst had happened, even though Zak said he was just sick. And no, that wasn't the only time she did something to him. I saw her hurt him more than once. I didn't know what to do about it. I was just a kid myself.”

“My gods,” Roslin said. “I never... He...”

“Lee didn't want anyone knowing. That much is true. He even cut me out of his life because I knew about the abuse and he didn't want to acknowledge it,” Karl said. “I wasn't much of a friend to him then, but I'll be damned if I sit back now and say nothing. Your ex-wife had a problem, sir. And your son paid for it, but that stops now. Don't tell him not to tarnish his mother's memory because she did that her frakking self. You should be worried about him, not about her. And you should have been when he was a kid, too, but it's too frakking late for that.”

Adama stared at him with barely restrained fury. “Captain Agathon—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Karl said. “I believe I have flight schedules to discuss with the major.”

* * *

“You shouldn't have told him.”

“Frak that,” Karl said, sitting down next to Lee, passing him a bottle of the chief's finest. The other man took it, turning it over in his hands without drinking out of it.

“You know... I probably shouldn't. Alcoholism is in my blood, after all. It would be all too easy to become my mother,” Lee said, snorting. He opened the bottle and took a swig, coughing with the burn. “Then again, who the frak cares, right?”

“I do, and that's why I told him. I told the president, too, so he's not going to be able to bury it and live in the bubble anymore. You don't have to do it, either.”

Lee looked at him. “You actually think that helps?”

“You said it wasn't enough to pretend. Now you don't have to. And you're not alone in being pissed off at him. What he did back there was frakking ridiculous.”

Lee shrugged. “He needs Mom to be better than she was. It's how he copes.”

“You don't have to live a lie because he does. You know what she was. Trying to deny that only hurts you,” Karl insisted. “Don't do it anymore, Lee. You shouldn't have to.”

“You have no idea how bad the fallout from this can get.”

Karl shook his head. “I know that last time I wasn't there for you. I wasn't a good friend, but this time is different. I'm with you through it. All the way. I don't care what happens.”

“You are a frakking idiot,” Lee told him, taking another drink. “And a good friend.”


End file.
